Published: December 31, 2008 12:35 pm      

Employment cutbacks on the rise in Louisville metro area

Dufrene: Local retail has been ‘quite resilient’

Job loss accelerated in the Louisville metro area over the past year to the tune of nearly 11,000 non-farm positions eliminated, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, reports.

The bureau examined payrolls from November 2007 through November 2008. The December report focused on metropolitan areas and followed a survey released earlier this month that reported a decline of 533,000 jobs nationally.

“Losses appear in both goods producing and service producing sectors,” said Uric Dufrene, Sanders chair of the Indiana University Southeast School of Business.

Transportation and utilities sectors registered the first year-over-year loss in payrolls in four years, according to Dufrene. He said combined the two sectors reported 800 job losses, adding most probably came from transportation.

Leisure and hospitality continued to show decreases, with 2,200 positions lost since last November.

Losses in professional and business services also continued to increase. Dufrene said those cuts are mainly in the administrative support area with a large portion of them coming from drawbacks in temporary labor services.

There is some good news for the area, with retail employment only down 100 positions from last year.

“This does not surprise me altogether. Retailers in Louisville metro have shed about 5,000 retail jobs in the past eight years, so they have done a good job in maintaining efficiencies,” Dufrene said.

“Retail and wholesale trade have been quite resilient thus far.”

All sectors of government showed job increases and educational services and health care remained stable. Dufrene said losses in manufacturing are starting to decelerate, which he describes as a glimmer of light.

Specific county numbers are provided through the BLS on about a six-month lag behind the metro statistics. Louisville metro includes the Southern Indiana counties of Floyd, Clark, Washington and Harrison.

The most recent county numbers are for the second quarter of 2008. Dufrene said they show Floyd and Clark actually gained about 1,400 jobs from the second quarter of 2007 to the second quarter of 2008.

Over that same time period, Louisville metro gained about 500 jobs total.

“I can confidently say that job gains for Louisville metro during the second quarter can be attributed to the growth in Southern Indiana,” Dufrene said.

Unemployment impacts spending, as shown by the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index. The financial meter fell to 38 in December from 44.7 in November, the Associated Press reports.

“Deepening job insecurity and falling asset prices are outweighing any optimism consumers may have derived from falling gas prices,” U.S. economist Dana Saporta told the AP.